I am at a point in my life where I can quite reliably tell whether pasta is ready by just stirring it in the water with a cooking spoon. I don't know what it is, they just "feel" ready, or they don't. I was exposed to considerable training data as a student. But I can only do this with "standard" pasta I regularly cook, that is penne, spaghetti, fusilli [0], maccheroni, gemelli, farfalle, linguine, etc. As soon as I try exotic new pasta [1], I have to fall back to tasting it every minute like some amateur. Cooking pasta with a timer has never worked for me.
Following the cooking time on the bag for "al dente" pasta has given us pretty consistent results. Some brands more accurate than others.
But yeah, at this point I can tell when it's ready by stirring too. There's been plenty of moments where I've forgotten to set the timer and then have to guestimate the time left and feel readiness by stirring. Do it often enough and you just know when it's done. I used to taste it til ready when younger, but haven't had to bother in ages.
Yeah, that's how I cook my curds when I make hard cheeses, also. I use an egg beater to stir curds while heating them up until they're the right size and consistency. Normally you're supposed to take some curds in your hand and squeeze them to test the consistency, but I don't want to stick my hands in the curds because it's a pain sanitizing them before and after (the hands, not the curds, haha). So I just pay attention to the way the curds feel as they hit the tines of the egg beater. When they're ready, they feel ready.
Human touch is such an underrated sense! The intuitive, sub-liminal information you get from it is unbelievable.
Edit: this article shows the process of cooking curds:
There are two fundamental rules of making good pasta, maybe more, but these are what seem to be held the most to heart:
1. If you don't salt enough, no matter how good you make the sauce, or how fancy the noodle is, you're not going to have a good pasta dish. This seems to be one of the primary positions of this paper (although I didn't read it)
2. It's commonly known that Italian street vendors serving pasta would re-use the water throughout the day. This led to an increasing amount of starch being extracted into the water and ultimately, a better noodle closer to the end of the day. Starch is important and this is why pasta water is key to the finish of a pasta dish.
When you're cooking for just one or two people, you can just make everything in one large pan. Start the sauce (fry garlic in olive oil, etc), then add the liquid (usually canned tomatoes plus a couple can-fulls of water) and pasta.
You need a little experimentation to figure out how much water you need, then you'll have perfectly cooked pasta when the sauce is appropriately reduced.
The problem here is that if your stove isn't very powerful the pasta can cool down the watera lot at the start. This can lead to sticking or just suboptimal pasta. Using more water mitigates this.
The point about salt is what people always say about bread and cheese, also, but I cook all my dishes and make my own bread and cheese without salt (health reasons), and I can say with conviction that it's not true. You can cook pasta just as well with and without any salt at all and the same goes for anything else also. Scientific measurements may be measuring ... something. But they're not necessarily measuring what really matters, which is how stuff tastes when you actually eat it. As to trained taster panels, in my opinion those are trained to match what the prevailing orthodoxy is and you can safely ignore them.
I don't get why my comment is downvoted. Yes, I know the HN guidelines, but what, exactly, is it that people disagree with in my comment, can someone please say? Cheers.
I don't know why you got downvoted but I do know I like salt and I often run into places that don't put enough of it. Whether it's important for pasta or not I really don't know but it's easy to believe it would be better with than without. Also, adding salt after cooking doesn't taste the same as adding it during cooking (again, in general, not specifically for pasta). My go to example for that would be scrambled eggs. Salted before cooked they taste great. Salted after they taste like bland eggs with salt added on top.
I find highly repeatable success by using one pressure cooker on a precise timer and strictly measuring my pasta by weight. The procedure is so reliable that I can switch my brain off and essentially meditate for the ~24 minutes it takes to complete the entire meal prep cycle. You'd think all the extra pots & pans would equate to higher quality outcomes, but I can make something that I find extremely agreeable using just the one vessel, assuming all of the various metrics are held to specification.
For me, hack #2 is just the passage of time. Eating this stuff right after its done is not peak quality (especially considering the breakneck pace at which I prep). Reheating a few hours later or next day is where the magic kicks in. As a consequence, I usually meal prep a few days in advance, so that these effects can take hold while I finish off the previous batch of whatever.
Measuring ingredients by weight is so much easier, faster, and more precise than doing it by volume. All you need is a cheap electronic kitchen scale that's accurate to the gram. It's unfortunate that American recipes have standardized on expecting you to have measuring cups instead of a scale.
You cook pasta in a pressure cooker for 24 minutes? I thought pressure cookers decreased cooking time and the longest cooking time I've ever encountered for pasta is 17 minutes.
I'm guessing that's the entire time, including getting the cooker up to the desired pressure, and possibly a slow release. Maybe only 5 minutes of that is full-pressure cooking.
Then what is the point of using the pressure cooker if he wastes 24 minutes?
Spaghetti are ready in 10 minutes in a normal pot, and with a good induction hob the water is boiling in something like 5 minutes.
I'm not him, so just speculating here, but maybe he's making sauce and pasta together all-in-one? And perhaps uses thick pastas or doesn't want al dente?
I cook a LOT in my Instantpot. Rice button sets for 12 mins after it gets up to pressure, so its ~30 mins to said rice - however, I usually just leave it in while I cook the other things - and typically its been an hour that the rice is done and just sitting there waiting to be eaten.
FYI - if you dont yet have an instant pot, it will change your cooking life.
Just to confirm - No, the pasta does not cook for 24 minutes. It cooks for 9 minutes. 24 is the overall time it takes to get things to a state of completion (i.e. ready to start making portions for freezer).
Does this work with the higher-protein "keto" pastas out there? So my question, I guess, is when is pasta pasta and what actually is pasta and at which point does it become not pasta or anti-pasta? Can any of these questions be answered? Will they ever be? Who knows such things.
We thank You, Science. No idea how we got this far without You. We patiently and humbly await Your next breakthrough. Humanity is nothing without You. It is right to give You thanks and praise.
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[ 0.18 ms ] story [ 100 ms ] thread[0] https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog1792508/AOG...
[1] https://www.barilla.com/en-au/products/pasta/collezione/casa...
But yeah, at this point I can tell when it's ready by stirring too. There's been plenty of moments where I've forgotten to set the timer and then have to guestimate the time left and feel readiness by stirring. Do it often enough and you just know when it's done. I used to taste it til ready when younger, but haven't had to bother in ages.
https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/news/barilla-spotify-how...
Human touch is such an underrated sense! The intuitive, sub-liminal information you get from it is unbelievable.
Edit: this article shows the process of cooking curds:
https://cheesemaking.com/collections/recipes/products/alpine...
See step 4 "Cook curd" and look at the two pictures in the list for the traditional testing method.
I've also been exposed to a lot of training data since I spent 80% of my life in Italy.
It pairs well with gorgonzola cheese and a cream sauce.
But when I don't, I bite off the end of a piece and look to see if there's a tiny dry center or not.
I don't know if I've ever had an issue cooking Barilla pasta for the amount of time specified on the box, regardless.
1. If you don't salt enough, no matter how good you make the sauce, or how fancy the noodle is, you're not going to have a good pasta dish. This seems to be one of the primary positions of this paper (although I didn't read it)
2. It's commonly known that Italian street vendors serving pasta would re-use the water throughout the day. This led to an increasing amount of starch being extracted into the water and ultimately, a better noodle closer to the end of the day. Starch is important and this is why pasta water is key to the finish of a pasta dish.
You need a little experimentation to figure out how much water you need, then you'll have perfectly cooked pasta when the sauce is appropriately reduced.
Packaging says to cook pasta in a lot of water, but this is because that is what large kitchens do, as they reuse the water throughout the day.
In the home kitchen you get closer to the reused, starchy water, by simply using less water and stirring.
I'm saying that yes, you can have a good pasta dish without salt, not that it doesn't taste better with salt.
I've lived in Italy for most of my life and I have never seen a pasta street vendor. Pasta is something that you eat sitting down.
Especially if you crumble in some extra parmigiano reggiano.
Highly recommend you try it at least once.
I use zero salt. IME it's unnecessary.
For me, hack #2 is just the passage of time. Eating this stuff right after its done is not peak quality (especially considering the breakneck pace at which I prep). Reheating a few hours later or next day is where the magic kicks in. As a consequence, I usually meal prep a few days in advance, so that these effects can take hold while I finish off the previous batch of whatever.
I cook a LOT in my Instantpot. Rice button sets for 12 mins after it gets up to pressure, so its ~30 mins to said rice - however, I usually just leave it in while I cook the other things - and typically its been an hour that the rice is done and just sitting there waiting to be eaten.
FYI - if you dont yet have an instant pot, it will change your cooking life.
Get one.